


To the Last

by spirrum



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, red lyrium future, spoilers for In Hushed Whispers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 21:26:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3224018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spirrum/pseuds/spirrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“One last time, Seeker?” he asks as the doors close behind them, and she knows the hard truth of the words, playfully as they're uttered here at the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Last

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.

The world ends, as far as Cassandra is concerned, when they take him.

They're all kept separated from the start, and she knows only little about what is happening with the others. She knows there are – experiments, if such a bland term can be applied to the atrocities that are committed, but they don't come for her often. Instead they leave her to wither away in the red-tinged darkness, _but she will not break._

It's weeks between the rare occasions she's given proof that there are other survivors, but it's usually only short glimpses through the bars of her cell as they're hauled from the dungeons. Sometimes she can't even tell which of them it is, and the taste of bile seems a permanent thing in her mouth. But – it's never him, she hasn't heard his voice in months, hasn't seen a trace of him since the day they dragged him away, already half-dead from the blow that had struck him down. And she thanks the Maker with whatever gratitude she has left in her heart. 

She refuses to think that he might have perished – that he's no longer there, somewhere within the walls of their hell of stone and crystal. But it's a bitter thought, a fleeting, wishful thing in a world with no room for wishes, but it's what grants her sleep at night, however little.

She prays a lot, in the beginning. Upon waking, and before she falls asleep, she prays for – change. For mercy. For vengeance, and – for respite, until the days bleed into one another and she does not know what she is praying for anymore. For an end, perhaps, but – also for him,  _always for him_ , no matter what her desires are between long hours with only her thoughts for company. And she thinks of past things –  _stolen kisses by the fire, the smell of ink on vellum and his laughter in her ears, his hands on her hips and his smile in the dip of her throat_ – but as the days pass the memories grow cold and blurred, until she can only grapple at vague snippets.

Then one day – she hears it. She doesn't know if it's morning or night, has lost track of time in the red and the dark, but she wakes to a sound that tears through the stone of her cell, screams of the sort she's come to know, but it's different now because she knows this voice -- _she knows his voice._ Maker it kills her, and – this is her penance, she realizes, not torture at their hands, but worse, oh it's so much worse but the Maker doesn't hear her now when she begs.

She does not pray after that.

.

They meet again under the strangest of circumstances – the Herald of Andraste, back and whole and hale like the world has not yet ended and Cassandra does not understand it, cannot wrap her mind around the evidence before her. But the bars of her cell are pried open, and she's – not free, because she'll never be free of this, but she is no longer contained by physical trappings and it is something – it is more than she's had in months, and she grabs her new fate with both hands because  _she may be broken but she will not fall yet._

The Herald looks at her with grief, but does not speak the words, and Cassandra is glad – she does not desire pity, honest though it may be. Pity will not give her the strength she needs to see this through, and she draws instead on her anger, a well of it burning hot and righteous below her heart, and when their leader moves forward, she follows.

When they find him –  _and Maker but it is him, he's not dead but there is no life in his eyes, like her it is too late for that_ – it is not with fury her hands tremble, and she keeps a white-knuckled grip on her weapon to keep herself from crumbling. It is a laden silence that follows the soft whine of the door to his cell as it slides open, but she does not reach for him, nor he for her, for there is no room for reunions in this world. But if what the Herald is saying is true, there may be room for it in another, and so she gathers her courage and her faith with the lift of her sword and shield.

“One last time, Seeker?” he asks, as the doors close behind them, cutting them off from the others, and she knows the truth of it. One last time, and it's their choice, their decision to make after so long at the mercy of another. The handle of her sword feels an almost foreign weight in her grip, but she holds it up with the little strength she has left, and beside her he raises his crossbow.

“I–” she begins. Pauses. But it's the end, and what has she got to lose? “I love you,” she says then, and it's the first she says it and it will be the last and _Maker but it wasn't supposed to be like this._ “I hope I will again.”

He smiles, and it's cold and warm and false and true, but – she knows he understands.

It's not her Maker's mercy or Andraste's name, but it's a truth amongst many in her broken heart. It is the last thing she says, and – the last that he hears, for he is the first to fall. But she is quick to follow of her own volition, covering his fallen form with her own, for she will be his shield though her own sword has broken. And there's a prayer in her soul now, sharp and raw like an oath after so long in the dark, but this time she does not pray for death, or for mercy or vengeance _._ As it all comes to an end –  _her hands buried in his tunic, his heart quiet below her ear; as enemies fall around them and with a Nightingale's final song an echo through the stone –_

– she prays for a beginning.


End file.
